Ash

Today is supposed to be different. It is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. It began like any other day: clear skies, cold air, bundled kids walking to school, people driving off to work with steam clouds erupting from cold exhaust pipes.

Quinn was happily upstairs with Becky in her studio when I was ready to take my morning walk, so I swaddled Emmett in his doggy sweater, hitched him to his leash, layered myself up and we were out the door without his older, slower canine companion. The two of us meandered through the neighborhood to the north, the cold wind’s cadence thrumming my exposed cheeks with a rhythmic beat. Emmett tucked his ear back against the wind. It was pretty, though. Crisp blue above, framed by bare trees with spring buds starting to form. The thought and hope of warmer weather helped put a smile on my face as Emmett stopped to sniff tree trunks.

Working in a church environment doesn’t necessarily lend itself to enhancing one’s experience of a holy day. The past few years I have participated in Ashes to Go, hanging out at a Metro stop, offering a quick prayer and swipe of ash to morning commuters. I didn’t think to tag along with another clergy this year as in the past, but I had hoped to make it to the noon service at the cathedral, down one flight of stairs from my office. But a morning collaboration meeting with some Lutheran colleagues downtown ran longer than I’d planned, so I missed the service.

The day wore on, typical in every other way. I was part of two different video meetings with people from all over the country on a topic I care deeply about: congregational vitality. On my computer monitor, I could make out crosses of ash on the foreheads of some of the participants. After those virtual meetings, I had to address the ash of some personnel issues that needed attention and psychic energy.

The day drew to a close as the sun neared the horizon and I headed home. My spouse is out of town, but I arrived home greeted by two enthusiastic dogs that acted as if I’d been gone for years. Such a grace-filled way to know one is important and loved. I changed into my flannel and fleece before I remembered that I still didn’t have ashes on my forehead. It was about 6:15 and I still had time to attend a nearby service, but my body was not going to go through a reverse wardrobe change. I thought, “What kind of a priest doesn’t go to church on Ash Wednesday?” Then I thanked Otto, my internal shame messenger, for sharing and asked him to go have a seat in another room of my consciousness out of earshot.

It was in that moment of self-compassion, standing in the twilight quiet of my home, dogs attentively looking on, that I pulled out my phone and googled “Ash Wednesday liturgy.” The New Zealand prayer book popped up and I was in. I sat in the rocker in the living room next to the fireplace and recited “Almighty and merciful God, you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent…”

In less than ten minutes, I was kneeling on the floor in front of the fireplace, knee caps pressed on the tiled hearth, hand reaching to open the grate, thumb descending to smear ash on its surface. Continuing to kneel with my head bent over into the fireplace, I brought my right thumb up to my forehead, made the sign of the cross and said, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I continued kneeling in silence, looking at the ash in the fireplace, observing the patterns created by consumed logs from weeks ago, thinking about the oak trees that grew, lived and fell in a cycle of life I will one day complete myself.

Today was different. I’ve never prayed kneeling in front of a fireplace. I’ve never done an Ash Wednesday liturgy alone. But of course I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t in a church building, but I had God and the dogs…and the gift of my own conscious gratitude. Lent has begun.